Related News

Republican senators from South Carolina and Georgia want the Obama administration to keep funding a program to turn weapons-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel. The MOX plant under construction at the Savannah River Site near Aiken is part of a nonproliferation effort.

Federal officials are meeting to discuss mixed-oxide fuel at an old nuclear weapons site near Augusta. The meeting is one of several the Energy Department is holding around the country to discuss an environmental impact statement for the MOX facility at the Savannah River Site.

Work is picking up at the mixed-oxide fuel plant under construction at the Savannah River Site near Augusta. So federal regulators are spending more time reviewing the project as it nears completion in 2016. Regulators met with the public Tuesday to answer questions and provide updates about the U.S. Department of Energy plant, which is roughly 60 percent complete.

Federal labor officials are expanding the number of people who can receive payments for having illnesses related to the Savannah River Site. The former nuclear weapons facility near Augusta employed thousands of people who later suffered radiation-related illnesses. The agency now is re-opening about 800 cases.

Some former employees at the Savannah River Site near Augusta who have been diagnosed with certain types of cancer may be getting some help with medical claims. A program to compensate the cancer victims includes workers whose previous claims might have been rejected.

Federal energy officials say, they're permanently closing two underground storage tanks that once held radioactive waste at the Savannah River Site near Augusta. The US built the tanks during the Cold War and started cleaning them up in the 1980's. Officials hailed the closures. But they also noted, there are 47 more such tanks that need to be made permanently safe.

Wood chips and old shredded tires could save the federal government around $1 billion over the next two decades, according to officials at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The nuclear science site near Aiken has opened a new power plant that burns the waste material to make steam, which in turn generates enough power to run 30 percent of plant operations, the Department of Energy said.